Government Resume Basics
Your resume is a vital document in your job application and you need to present yourself as a highly desirable employee, while conveying all relevant information clearly, and concisely.
Selection Advisory Committees will potentially be confronted with hundreds of applications, depending upon the position and they do not have time to plow through lengthy resumes, or spend time searching for important and relevant information.
The aim of your resume is to provide a reference for your claims against the selection criteria. Selection Advisory Committees will cross check the claims you have made in your selection criteria with the information you have provided in your resume, to assess the validity of your claims. These two documents combined will win you an interview so that you have the opportunity to impress the employer in person.
Your resume therefore needs to be brief, and effective.
Despite what some guides may tell you, there is a right and wrong way to write a resume. Just ask any professional recruiter and they will tell you of many examples that they see every day of bad resumes. Bad in content, format, and presentation.
Five simple tips to write a great resume:
1. Use a clear and easy to read font type, sized at least font size 12, and use highlighting, bullet points and lots of white space to make your resume easy to skim read.
2. Unless you are applying for a position in a creative industry, such as website design, graphic art or photography etc, stay away from graphics and fancy borders. While you may be trying to grab the reader’s attention, it will make your resume more difficult to read and understand, and will therefore most likely have a negative impact.
3. Put the most relevant information towards the front.
4. Don’t use “jargon” or assume that the person reading your resume understands your industry.
5. Keep the length of your resume to around three pages. Shorter if you don’t have enough work experience, don’t pad it out. Longer if you have considerable relevant work experience, however try not to go beyond four pages. A lengthy resume will work against you.
